Last week my mother, sister, and I took a dangerous trip to my favorite nail polish spot. It’s one of those little wholesale places where everything is pretty much half price and it was the best discovery I ever made! Now, I usually go in with only $20 so I can limit my purchases…but for some reason this wasn’t a problem this time. I walked out with a lone bottle of Seche Vite and that was it! Guess I just wasn’t feeling any of the options? I’ll have to go back before I’m off to Boston again though! Point of the story though, is that my mom and sister nabbed some pretties and I obviously had to try some of them out. I went for my sister’s bottle of OPI’s Mimosa for Mr and Mrs, which is a lovely light pink. Being me though, I had to add some sparkles!

Last week I wanted to do some water marbling, but I’d already done the traditional dipping-in-water technique on my sister’s nails so I decided to finally try the saran wrap manicure! It was super easy and I love the outcome! Makes me think of my birthstone – turquoise!

(Sorry for the thumb chip, this was after a few days of wear.)

Have you ever tried this technique? I think I actually prefer this to water marbling just because of the messiness aspect of the latter. But they both provide some unique and gorgeous looks!

Hey everyone! If you’ve been following the GIOGO girls (and I don’t know why you wouldn’t be – they’re awesome!) then you’ll know that today is International Nail Art Day! It’s obviously cause enough for some celebration here at ManyManis, but August 3rd also happens to be my dearest mother’s birthday!

I tried and tried to plan the perfect, super extravagant look to fit this wonderful day but couldn’t settle on one idea. Instead, I give you multiple manicures to celebrate!

First up: Butterfly and floral stamping using Julep’s Audrey and Lauren.

I have long been in awe of and intimidated by the one stroke technique for about a year now. I put off trying it by using the excuse that I didn’t have the right brush for the job, but since my birthday this past winter, that’s no longer valid. Even so, this past weekend was the first time I ever tried the one stroke technique and I must say I’m pretty proud of the outcome!

I started with a gradient using OPI’s Pearl of Wisdom and Lucky Lucky Lavender before adding the flower petals in each corner using Zoya’s Snow White and A England’s Lady of the Lake. Feeling like that still wasn’t enough, I added the dots around the other nail edge using a dotting tool.

Remember my post about finally procurring some of the lovely OPI Bond shades?

Around that time, I decided I wanted to grow my nails out with the specific purpose of attempting the lovely Severine’s manicure. I just could not take my eyes off her nails while watching the movie! Unfortunately, I’ve got some stubby nails now (hence the lack of posting on my part), so it’s a good thing I tried out the look then.

Last weekend was my team’s ballroom competition, and during the set up the day before I got to paint a whole bunch of nails! I had done my own to match my dress with my A England beauties (Princess Tears and Lady of the Lake) and added a generous amount of rhinestones, because you can’t have ballroom without sparkles!

One of the other girls wore a dress whose main colors were green, red and nude, so we did her nails to match as well!

Here’s a closer view of the rhinestone gradient as an accent nail:

I also did another purple manicure for a friend named Davlyn, whose natural nails are absolutely ridiculous! Look at how long and well shaped they are! I’m so jealous.

Like me, she got two different colors of purple rhinestones 🙂

And finally, a picture of the purple princesses of the ballroom team, including me (right) Davlyn (center) and my wonderful co-blogger Audrey (left)!

Do you see what I mean about sparkles and ballroom going hand-in-hand?

We have another competition next weekend, and I’m hoping to do something different next time, so stay tuned if you love rhinestones!

ALSO! You have one more day to enter the giveaway, so don’t forfeit your chance to win the gorgeous shades of HITS Tango and Foxtrot!

I’m attending the So You Think You Can Dance auditions on Thursday of this week and obviously needed an awesome set of nails. It’s partially for confidence but also just in case I get a chance to talk to Cat because I’ll need something to say! Anyway, I’ve had my eye on this design for a while and saw Wicked Nails’ interpretation of it on Tumblr, so I thought it would be great to try out for this occasion.

Here’s how it ended up!

As you can see, I added a little extra with a rhinestone on each nail. I am a ballroom dancer after all!

I also used completely different colors than both of the above examples because I wanted the look to be even flashier. Almost everyone I’ve interacted with since I’ve had this mani has loved it. It is by far one of my favorite manis ever 🙂

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone! I hope you’re all having a wonderful day so far 🙂

I’ve had this mani on since this past weekend, but obviously had to keep it on for today. I’ve gotten so many compliments on it and I can’t get over the gorgeous red rhinestones. I also got to use one of my birthday presents from a friend of mine, China Glaze’s Ruby Pumps, which has been on my lust list for a really long time!